I sell my mother's silver in a hotel room

So what do you do with a cardboard box full of silver stuff -- teapot, candle holders, serving dishes, trophies -- that's been sitting in the garage for over twenty years, tarnished beyond belief, when you have no idea what it's worth or who might want to buy it?

That was my problem when my wife, who's been doing most of our pre-spring garage cleaning, told me "You've got to do something with your mother's silver. It's been taking up space for too long."

Dutiful husband that I am, I picked up the box from the floor of the garage, walked into the carport, and laid it on a stack of firewood.

I figured that this would show my wife that I was in the process of dealing with the silver -- which for the past month or so consisted of me glancing at the box as I got into my car, thinking "I've got to do something about that stuff one of these days."

This time my procrastination, which usually lacks a cause other than sloth, actually had a reason behind it.

I was mystified by the silver. I vaguely understood that there was "sterling silver" and lesser varieties, but didn't know the caliber of the box contents. They were so tarnished, it was hard to make out any inscriptions on most of the items.

I toyed with the idea of donating the box to Goodwill. As I'm about to describe, that would have been great for Goodwill and bad for me, so sometimes procrastinating pays off.

A couple of days ago our local newspaper, the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal ran three full page ads in Section A with a "Buying -- 4 Days Only -- instant cash for all..." headline.

Part of the "all..." was sterling and silver.

My wife, who pays a lot more attention to ads than I do, tore out one of the pages advertising the Anderson Carter Tira & Associates Estates Buyers event at the Shiloh Inn. She handed it to me along with the name and address of a pawn shop in our area that also buys silver.

My mission today, and I had no choice but to accept it, was to find the best price for the silver. This was in line with the Anderson Carter advice in their ad:

"We are confident our buyers will beat most legitimate offers! How to test us: Take your valuable items to other dealers before bringing them to us. Have them give you legitimate written offers... We believe the buyers we have chosen will beat most legitimate written offers."

But when I got to the pawn shop, the guy who evaluates silver wasn't there. I think this was my first time ever in a pawn shop, so I did appreciate a new experience.

Carrying in the plastic container that my wife (correctly) thought would be a classier container for the silver pieces than an old cardboard box with mouse droppings on the bottom of it, I empathized with the woman at the counter who apparently was retrieving some items that she'd pawned.

Times are tough. I was impressed with how polite the proprietors of the pawn shop were, and how neatly it was organized. I was tempted to do some shopping, then remembered that my mission was to make some money, not spend it.

I then headed to the Shiloh Inn on Market Street. It was an appropriate setting for the "Instant Cash for All" event, not too seedy, yet definitely not upscale. Getting off the elevator on the second floor, clutching my plastic box, I was met by a blue-jeaned twenty-something guy who asked what I was wanting to sell.

Demonstrating my sophistication, I said "Um, some silver, not utensils, you know, um, silver..." He rescued me with "flatware." "Yeah, flatware, that's it. I've got some silver flatware."

The guy ushered me down the hall. Each hotel room had a sign taped to the door designating the sort of stuff being assessed within: jewelry, gold, etc. I was told to sit behind a table in the silver room, put my things on it, and then wait for someone to look them over.

He walked in after a minute or two. After inspecting the bottoms of the pieces, for signs of "sterling silver" I figured, he said "Wait here. A buyer will be with you soon." Apparently I'd passed the first stage of silver purchasing, which made me feel hopeful.

The next buyer guy was more thorough. He went through the items carefully, putting most of them on a desk blotter and setting a few of them off to the side. When he was done, he told me that I could put the non-blottered items back in my box, because they weren't silver.

He then proceeded to weigh each of the approved items on a scale. While he did this, we chatted about this and that. I told him how my mother used to bring out her silver set for company, and then I'd have to help her clean it the next day, which now seemed like a lot of work, given that I have trouble even putting things in the dishwasher.

When he was done weighing, the buyer wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "This is what I can offer you," he said. Yeow. I was surprised. Not at all what I expected. But of course, I had no idea what to expect.

Not wanting to wait a couple of days to show my stuff to the pawn shop silver guy, I decided to accept this offer. My "OK" soon brought me to the room next door, where some crisp cash was counted out and put in front of me.

Getting home, I told my wife that I'd gotten rid of the silver.

I asked her, "How much do you think they paid me for it? Take a guess." "Twenty-five dollars," she said. (Later I learned that this was how much she got thirty years ago for some silver-plated items that belonged to her own mother.)

I opened my wallet and started to count out the money that had been given me. "FIve dollars," I said. "That's it?" "No, there's more." I pulled out a twenty. "Twenty-five." Then, with a smile, I took out a hundred dollar bill. "One hundred twenty-five."

"Wow," my wife said. "I didn't think it was worth that much." I took out another $100 bill. "Two hundred twenty-five." And another. "Three hundred twenty-five." She was roundly shocked by the time I got to "Seven hundred twenty-five." Obviously neither of us had kept up with the price of silver.

This was free enterprise at its best (or worst, depending on your view of capitalism). Almost certainly, I got screwed today. But I was happy to be taken advantage of. So a buyer and a seller both went away happy.

Meaning, I'm pretty sure I could have gotten even more for the silver pieces if I'd either bargained with the buyer, or taken the silver to some other reputable potential purchasers. However, I had no idea how much the silver was worth, and I also had no idea where else I could try to sell it locally, other than pawn shops.

And it could be that my wife's theory is more or less correct: that large-scale buyers of precious items like Anderson Carter Tira & Associates can pay a decent price for stuff because they have closer connections with the end purchaser, eliminating a middle man that a pawn shop would have to deal with.

Regardless, the deal is done. I did some Googling before writing this post. I couldn't find any serious complaints about Anderson Carter Tira & Associates.

There was some confusion in Virginia a few years back, when it was discovered that an obscure provision in state law prevented "breeze-into-town" buyers from doing their thing. Some people also challenged the accuracy of their scales, but later they were found to be accurate.

Commenters on a blog post about a Houston Anderson Carter event were mostly negative, but that's typical on the Internet: complainers are more likely to share their views than satisfied customers. (Here's another story from a Connecticut newspaper.)

My impression, based mostly on my personal experience, is that these folks are good at what they do and provide a useful service. If you've got something really valuable to sell, it'd make sense to get quite a few serious appraisals of it.

However, for people like me who have a mouse-poop ridden box of old silver sitting around in the garage that a spouse says "Must go!", a selling opportunity like the one I took advantage of today is terrific.

Comments

[Rachel]

Cha-ching. Nice. I agree, even if you were screwed, it was fun. Ha ha. Really though, the stuff was just gathering dust in your garage. Nice to clear out the clutter.

[Clark J.]

Your instincts were correct. That is not a good way to sell silver. Usually you get short changed, sometimes not, but sometimes by a lot.

Better to go to a reputable coin or metals dealer knowing at least three things:

1. It is sterling silver
2. Its weight in ounces
3. current spot market value per ounce
4. approximate total value using the method below.

Sterling silver is 92.5% silver. The rest is usually copper or some other alloying agent to give it durability.

Currently silver has been trading in the $34 range per ounce.

5 lbs (80 oz) of sterling is worth about: 80 oz x $34 = $2,720 minus 7.5% = $2,516

The $725 you got would be about right for 22-23 oz of sterling silver.

How well did you do?

Oh well.

[Laurie Dougherty]

What! Trading solid silver for fiat money? Proof positive that you're no right winger, Brian.

[Roger]

Brian and Clark,

Did you receive a weight determination on your sterling silver items? I was thinking of selling my mother's SS tableware.

Would I get the wt.(oz) x .925 x ___ x $34? = $_____? I wonder what per cent the Silver buyer takes out?

Thanks for any info,
Roger

[Blogger Brian]

Roger, I'm not sure. You can Google "selling silver tableware" (or flatware) and find quite a bit of advice on this subject. I suppose it depends on part on whether someone is buying the silver set for itself (tableware) or for the silver content.

When I went to the pawn shop, a guy there told me that the silver would end up getting melted down. In that case, the middlemen are going to take a cut of the action, as will the end buyer, naturally. Plus there's the cost of extracting the silver to consider.

Get several bids from reputable rare metals dealers; that'd be the way to go. What you have probably is worth quite a bit, if it is sterling silver.

[Clark J.]

To whom it may concern,

Here is what you are likely to get from an honest dealer for sterling silver.

For example, you have 5 lbs (80 oz) of sterling silver cups and flatware which contains 92.5% pure silver.

80 oz. x .925 = 74 oz. That's how much silver you actually have.

As of today the spot market price is about $35.50 per ounce.

74 oz. x $35.50 = $2,627

Most coin dealers will give you 75-80% of that.

So, you should easily get $1,970.25 for 5 lbs of sterling silver.

Much less than that, you are being screwed.

[Roger]

[Roger had a problem with leaving a comment, so he emailed it to me and I'm posting it for him -- Blogger Brian]

Thanks Clark

I have my mother's 'Old Master' sterling silverware. I first need to determine the total weight(oz). Then, follow your suggested information.

[Clark J.]

Roger,

Do you need the cash now from your mother's silverware?

If not, I suggest waiting to sell your silver. While there may be ups and downs along the way, I don't think we are near the top of this bull market in the metals.

The U.S. dollar is under assault by our own government. We have overspent and now the GNP (the total amount of money the U.S. economy produces) will not even cover the interest we must pay the Chinese and others who own our paper (treasuries, bonds, etc.) The only possible course of action is to default and cause a deflationary implosion (depression) or to print fiat money, which the Fed (Bernanke) is currently doing as it is the only viable option for an administration that wants to remain in office.

Unfortunately, this course of action devalues the dollar and is inflationary. Eventually it will become hyper-inflationary because the debt is now too high and we can't keep pace with the interest. There isn't enough economic activity to generate the real income the government needs to pay all this off. So the printing presses roll. Essentially, the Fed is a counterfeiter and the world has caught on. They know we can't keep this up for much longer. We are paying off credit with credit like a bad consumer. We are in trouble, really no different than the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) who have done this and are now insolvent.

So, as the dollar loses its value, tangibles will tend to hold their value or go up in value relative to the dollar. Hence, it makes sense to hold on to silver. Avoid cash. Have only enough to pay your living expenses. Liquidate equities and hard assets as necessary to pay your bills. The rest of your assets should be elsewhere. Dollars are bad to own which should be obvious to anyone who has a savings account. The interest you are getting is much less than the rate of inflation. If you are saving money in a bank, you aren't saving, you are losing money.

[Roger]

Thanks Brian and Clark,

This week, I plan to have the sterling silverware weighed only. I can then use Clark's formula to investigate possible cash values. I don't need to rush into a sale. Thanks for the information.

[Roger]

Brian and Clark,

My mother's silverware weighed in at 1424grams, plus the 8 dinner knives equal to 4 ounces. Was offered $24.74/ounce.
I wonder if there is a better deal?

[Clark J]

Today, spot silver was at $37.60 per ounce last I checked. The dealer should give you about 75% of the current spot price per ounce for that quantity of silver. If you had a larger amount of sterling you might get 80%. They sell it to somebody who then has to melt the sterling to separate the pure silver from the alloying metal which is usually copper. The spot price changes from minute to minute when the markets are open.

[Roger]

Clark,

Yes, I will hold out for a better deal. I did find out, the blade on butter knife is sterling silver. Where does the 'melter' company sell the recovered silver to? I'm guessing the melter company gets the $37.60?

And, could I sell my silverware directly to the melting company? Maybe, maybe not.

Thanks for your continued messages.

[Leslie]

There are companies like "Replacements" that I believe buy sterling flatware sets which have been discontinued, so people who still own the sets can replace lost or damaged pieces. Check the web. In addition you could have gone on ebay to check out comparable items and see what they were selling for. Sterling anything costs a fortune now and if I were you I probably would not have sold it. There was no sentimental value to you at all? Maybe you should have saved some of grandmas silver for your kids.

[Roger]

Brian,

Last week, I finally sold my mother's 'old master' sterling silverware. At $34.0 per troy ounce, I received $1,150.00.